Man shopping with Assault Rifle Strapped to his Back at Utah J.C. Penney

I see him as making a political statement while at the same time being able to protect himself and his community. I wish more people would and could (depending on state law) walk around with an Ar variant or Ak variant or whatever the hell rifle they so please on their back all the time. That's my dreamland, as many good people armed as possible and carrying daily. My reasoning for him making a political statement is due to the fact that most people who carry, carry concealed and it's generally just a pistol. The recent legislation and EO's on the table and the recent Sandy Hook event has caused a lot of debate and emotions flying all over the place. This man is showing that good people also carry arms openly, not just bad men with ill intent. That there are good men in there, just because he's armed doesn't mean he's a threat to you. Along those lines, I could go into it further but I'd rather not at this moment just due to the fact that I'm exhausted.

reply to post by Honor93


I'm offering the compromise of not having firearms in the hands of people who are emotionally unstable through legal means. Or do you want the recent massacres to continue, because your plan offers nothing to stop the senseless bloodshed with how you're totally avoiding the problem.

I already laid out how it can be achieved. It's not a perfect system, but it sure is better than the one that's currently in place.

What do I know about mental health? Go look through my posting history.


Oh and from your own link regarding the extremist who went on a rampage.

Prior to the shooting, he had expressed extremist views which had been brought to the attention of his superiors and the FBI.

That's in the second paragraph and it looks like he, like all crazies, exhibited symptoms of emotional instability prior to the event. So, again, we have a psychopath who could have been pre-screened for emotional issues, who wasn't, and was allowed to go on a rampage.

Thank you for positing evidence which supports my position.


and there's more at the link.

While an intern at Walter Reed, he received counseling and extra supervision.

he received a poor performance evaluation.

Hasan sought discharge because of harassment relating to his Islamic faith

According to the uncle, "after he lost his parents he tried to replace their love by reading a lot of books, including the Koran."

Hasan had come to the attention of federal authorities at least six months before the attacks, because of internet postings he appeared to have made discussing suicide bombings and other threats, though authorities did not at the time definitively tie the postings to him.

Did you even read the person's profile? These are all questionable actions, but when added together paint a picture of someone who was not emotionally stable. There's more at that link, but instead of explaining to you how-to build a psychological profile on someone, i'll just leave it as your link did nothing but strengthen my position further.

Originally posted by rockoperawriter
reply to post by Evil_Santa

 

the biggest hole in this concept is the black market. you can buy guns, rockets, people. how can you liscense self preservation? also they can make gun safety classes free or really cheap. liscensing gun ownership is a flawed concept due to black market, blueprints. by your logic people should be liscensed to own chainsaws

edit on 20-1-2013 by rockoperawriter because: (no reason given)

Apparently you can also buy a Nuke on the black market too, that doesn't mean that it's legal to do so, or that there should be a legal Nuke-Mart that any tom, dick or susan can walk into and buy one.

Some governments already require chainsaw licenses and a lot of employers receive lower insurance rates when their employees have undergone chainsaw safety courses. To operate certain heavy machinery you need a license. Ever heard of OSHA? Oh, but now you've got an opening to call me a brainwashed government hub-bub person. The reality is that laws are created out of necessity, and in the case of the safety of other humans, and oneself, regulations on various laws are created in an attempt to mitigate damages.

To say that there should be zero regulation on firearm ownership, just because the constitution says so, is bullhooey. There's regulations on where a person can protest, practice their religion, and what can be said in a public venue (hate speech). I don't see you, and yours marching on the capital because those "constitutional rights" were imposed upon, yet y'all are threatening to have a civil war - like it's some kind of fashion statement among the right-wing - over the possibility of there being an additional form to fill out to buy a firearm.

Where were the cries of civil war when the occupy protesters' rights to peacefully assemble were being trounced on. Well, WHERE WERE THEY MR SELF-SERVING CONSTITUTIONALIST?!

How about when the 4th amendment was thrown out by the Bush administration via the patriot act?

Why is it that the pro-gun crowd can sit here and try to claim the position of "sticking to the constitution" on the 2nd amendment, while ignoring that they have let the constitution be walked all over in the past, when it suits their platform or when the rights being violated are to a group that they don't like? That just makes you all hypocrites.

And don't give me any of that "Hur Dur, the Occupy crowd was doing drugs, raping each other and trashing the place" justification to not stand up for their rights. Remember, you're trying to argue the position that it's ok for psychopaths to have the right to own firearms in this very thread.

reply to post by Grimpachi


At least try, if someone can see your armed and they still want to rob you they are going to ambush you and your scenario involves make believe (chuck norris meme) and something that depending on age is going to be pretty noticeable.

Originally posted by Evil_Santa

Originally posted by seabag
reply to post by kosmicjack

 

Both statements reflect the fact that neither myself nor - IMHO - the majority of people think your basic right to gun ownership should be impeded. That is to say, sure, own a reasonable gun for self-defense or sport.

The problem arises when those “majority of people” you speak of think you can dictate to the rest of us what a “reasonable gun for self-defense” is.

Why don’t you folks admit you’re fascists and let’s move on….

Some hypocrites don’t want us (conservatives) in your bedroom but you’re more than willing to stick your damn nose in my closet or gun cabinet. NOPE!!

edit on 19-1-2013 by seabag because: (no reason given)

I'll make you a deal. If the right-wing never brings up gay marriage, abortion, evolution, climate change ever again, we will let you buy any firearm your heart desires.

We will anyway, because you have no power to dictate to us what we do or don't buy.

reply to post by D377MC


Yes, you can do anything that you want, if you want to go piss on your neighbors sidewalk, you have the freedom to that as well - as a human being. The society that you live in states that doing this action would be against what is deemed as socially acceptable behavior, and you would receive societal consequences for your actions.

I also hope that you have the understanding to see how your actions affect others, as well as the imagination to see how the actions of others, affect the whole.

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reply to post by Evil_Santa


no, i believe psychopaths should be met with by force. i never believed in the whole occupy movement because of flaws in their manifesto. nuclear weapons are harder to construct than an a-k 47. so while a psychopath goes to a columbian drug cartel, buys an a-k 47, fully automatic and enters a shopping mall, school, church, and kills however many people until three hours later when the cops get there to clean up. unarmed citizens are massacred and that somehow merits the idea of stricter gun laws perticularly around "assault rifles" liscensing the rifles already in circulation is an untrustworthy act, why aren't gun safety classes or cwp classes free or cheap? the 20 year old psych patient was denied buying guns but got a hold of them anyway. if the liscensing process for a firearm goes through and another mass shooting takes place anyway then it's going to get stricter, and stricter, and stricter until people need a liscense to take a dump. no compromise! i will buy a battle rifle from a friend or neighbor before i succumb to liscensing something that psychopaths have little trouble getting a hold of. if the government can't trust us then we can't trust them. in fact they should fear us, not the other way around. call it "a dated concept" but it beats weapons falling into the wrong hands due to restrictions on what we can and can't buy. also, a battle rifle has a range up to 200 300 yards based on the make and model. a nuclear weapon like the ones my dad was responsible for in the navy, have a 100 mile kill radius. so the nuclear weapons argument goes out the window because a. it takes passcodes, keys, and a big red button to activate and detonate warheads, b. plutonium is a health hazard and c. smokeless gun powder is not

Originally posted by sonnny1

Originally posted by HeyAHuman
our cause

Our cause?

Our right !

Learn the difference.

I am aware of the difference, but if you want to mince words, then you should logically understand that if you stand up for your rights, then that is your Cause. Thanks for the input though

Originally posted by Evil_Santa
reply to post by Honor93

 

I'm offering the compromise of not having firearms in the hands of people who are emotionally unstable through legal means. Or do you want the recent massacres to continue, because your plan offers nothing to stop the senseless bloodshed with how you're totally avoiding the problem.

I already laid out how it can be achieved. It's not a perfect system, but it sure is better than the one that's currently in place.

What do I know about mental health? Go look through my posting history.

I think everyone is scratching their heads because no one a arguing your point here that you keep making. We ALL want to keep guns out of criminals and mentally deranged hands. So what is your cure to this that doesn't also take those guns out of honest mentally stable hands too?

We keep talking about ARs and once again ARs are used in 50 murders per year...Why are we talking about the weapon that does the least murders, even lower than Hammers. How do we keep guns and hammers out of the hands of people who should not have them? There are a lot of laws on the books, and systems too, so why not enforce those laws and fix the systems already in place.

No matter what, crazy and criminals are still going to kill people, and we can't stop that since if they really want to they will find a way. When we look at these people who do horrendous acts they ALL are either mentally unstable or criminals. It's like the guy that gets multi DUIs and it doesn't matter until he finally hits and kills someone. We then say "Why did we let him drive". Well we didn't let him drive, he drove because he had access to a car and other than putting him in jail for life on the first DUI it doesn't matter in this case what we do, he is going to drive drunk and one day kill someone.

When we look at these over the edge scenarios when do we call it quits on a person? When do we do a Prefrontal lobotomy on a psychopath, which we can determine by MRI/CAT scans, and early behaviors. When do we jail a person for life to preempt a future massacre? In the cases of the last 10 or so massacres what could we have done long before they happened that would have stopped them from some future event?

We have 10,000 people die every day....and a huge number of them die not from "old age". In a somewhat free society that is one of the down falls that allows people the freedom to kill themselves in stupid ways and allows them to kill others for whatever reason. In a free society we can only react and not preempt the vast majority of the time. The old saying, "innocent until proven guilty" also has a part to it of a person is innocent until they actually do something wrong, but then what do we do when the law ends up not mattering either to these people?

Originally posted by Evil_Santa

Some governments already require chainsaw licenses and a lot of employers receive lower insurance rates when their employees have undergone chainsaw safety courses. To operate certain heavy machinery you need a license. Ever heard of OSHA? Oh, but now you've got an opening to call me a brainwashed government hub-bub person. The reality is that laws are created out of necessity, and in the case of the safety of other humans, and oneself, regulations on various laws are created in an attempt to mitigate damages.

Is safety the issue here? Are people walking into a theater and accidently committing mass murder? I'm glad the killer in Aurora didn't know what he was doing. He barely had rudimentary skills and understanding of his weapons.

To say that there should be zero regulation on firearm ownership, just because the constitution says so, is bullhooey. There's regulations on where a person can protest, practice their religion, and what can be said in a public venue (hate speech). I don't see you, and yours marching on the capital because those "constitutional rights" were imposed upon, yet y'all are threatening to have a civil war - like it's some kind of fashion statement among the right-wing - over the possibility of there being an additional form to fill out to buy a firearm.

We do have firearm regulation...a ton of it. Why do we need more?

Where were the cries of civil war when the occupy protesters' rights to peacefully assemble were being trounced on. Well, WHERE WERE THEY MR SELF-SERVING CONSTITUTIONALIST?
How about when the 4th amendment was thrown out by the Bush administration via the patriot act?

We all think the Patriot Act trampled the 4th Amendment, AND Obama trampled it more, so what is your point with this? We argue that point too in saying it was unconstitutional. To put this to rest...is there anyone here that agreed with the Patriot Act and didn't see it as an attack on the 4th Amendment?.....crickets chirping....

Should we roll over and let them hit the 2nd Amendment too?

reply to post by Xtrozero

We all think the Patriot Act trampled the 4th Amendment, AND Obama trampled it more, so what is your point with this? We argue that point too in saying it was unconstitutional. To put this to rest...is there anyone here that agreed with the Patriot Act and didn't see it as an attack on the 4th Amendment?.....crickets chirping....

Should we roll over and let them hit the 2nd Amendment too?

Hi,
That's basically what I was addressing initially...I'd rather see citizens open-carry (self govern) than just the police force/military as they do battle amongst us (innocents) with the black-marketeers/smugglers/psychotic money/fame-grabbers.

If all the guns got grabbed from the psychotic money/fame grabbers and put into the hands of innocent civilians, what would follow a decade after? Less disease, because we'd insist these a-holes get some help...

reply to post by Xtrozero

We all think the Patriot Act trampled the 4th Amendment, AND Obama trampled it more, so what is your point with this?

i don't believe anyone can state a point to that or the ongoing reference.

my question would be ... since we agree it was a bad decision, and most agree addl gun regs is a bad decision ... could someone please explain how 2 wrongs is expected to equal anything right ??

and in case many have forgotten, the American ppl are a pliable ppl.
they have been since the beginning.
that is why 3months of debate led to an AGREEMENT known as the Constitution.

our ability to learn from our own mistakes and cooperate with each other is why there are twice as many amendments today as the original draft contained.
we are not a rigid, non-compromising group ... no matter who says otherwise.
history proves the truth of that matter.

however, there is a unique beauty built into the 2nd Amendment and even one the FFs commented ... the Beauty of the 2nd is that it will not be needed until they try to take it away.
that beauty lies in EQUAL force, not selective force ... and it's about time Americans realized it.

do average citizens have a need or desire to own a nuke or an rpg ??
lordy i hope not ... however, should they have access IF the government does ??
ALWAYS and in some cases, they should be freely provided ... as in assigned to the States.

America is a union of nation states, not a collection of territories subject to DC.

Should we roll over and let them hit the 2nd Amendment too?

we've tried that (since 1934) repeatedly, yet, to no avail ... i have no interest in pursuing insanity, do you ??

oooh, i almost forgot to mention this ... the new 'advocacy' is for 'mandatory INSURANCE', don't ya know ... again, what about infringement, don't these ppl understand ??
baynews9

here's the teeth of this proposal which is picking up steam ...

Under the bill proposed in Massachusetts, there would be specific penalties for anyone found in possession of a gun without insurance. The fines would range from $500 to $5,000 or up to a year in jail.

reply to post by Evil_Santa

I'm offering the compromise of not having firearms in the hands of people who are emotionally unstable through legal means.

since we already have that, what's the compromise??

what are you willing to concede in order to achieve this 'compromise'??

i've offered the same suggestions over and over, just because you don't find them acceptable doesn't mean i'm avoiding anything.

yes, the current system is a bad one, i agree.
however, none of what has been proposed addresses the problems within the system ... why not ??

how will your 'scheme' reduce guns in the hands of criminals ?
how will your 'scheme' enhance the safety of all ?
how will your 'scheme' protect anyone ?
how would your 'scheme' prevent ppl like Nidal Hasan from achieving status, lunacy and legal firearm possession ??

i'm not searching your post history for nuggets of nonsense, thanks anyway.

Prior to the shooting, he had expressed extremist views which had been brought to the attention of his superiors and the FBI.

exactly, ppl knew and did nothing ... no kidding

meanwhile, this is the same person administering said tests and counseling those who were as unstable as he was ... how does more of the same correct any problem we currently suffer ??

we have a psychopath who could have been pre-screened for emotional issues, who wasn't, and was allowed to go on a rampage

exaggeration much ??
we have a tested and approved leader, a psyche dr and a an intelligence community that turned a blind eye ... what do any of the proposed EAs do to correct the above ??

i fail to see how being psychologically monitored, reported as a potential threat and no further action being taken enforces your argument in any manner ??
drs are already required to report such patients ... he was reported and still, nothing was done.
so, he killed how many, how long ago and where was the PUSH for legislation then ??
oh, that's right, we can't have the poor performance of the 'community' pegged as the culprit, can we ??

reply to post by Honor93


So....when they subpena the insurance companies for gun owners, do the insurance companies comply?

Originally posted by rockoperawriter
reply to post by Evil_Santa

 

no, i believe psychopaths should be met with by force. i never believed in the whole occupy movement because of flaws in their manifesto. nuclear weapons are harder to construct than an a-k 47. so while a psychopath goes to a columbian drug cartel, buys an a-k 47, fully automatic and enters a shopping mall, school, church, and kills however many people until three hours later when the cops get there to clean up. unarmed citizens are massacred and that somehow merits the idea of stricter gun laws perticularly around "assault rifles" liscensing the rifles already in circulation is an untrustworthy act, why aren't gun safety classes or cwp classes free or cheap? the 20 year old psych patient was denied buying guns but got a hold of them anyway. if the liscensing process for a firearm goes through and another mass shooting takes place anyway then it's going to get stricter, and stricter, and stricter until people need a liscense to take a dump. no compromise! i will buy a battle rifle from a friend or neighbor before i succumb to liscensing something that psychopaths have little trouble getting a hold of. if the government can't trust us then we can't trust them. in fact they should fear us, not the other way around. call it "a dated concept" but it beats weapons falling into the wrong hands due to restrictions on what we can and can't buy. also, a battle rifle has a range up to 200 300 yards based on the make and model. a nuclear weapon like the ones my dad was responsible for in the navy, have a 100 mile kill radius. so the nuclear weapons argument goes out the window because a. it takes passcodes, keys, and a big red button to activate and detonate warheads, b. plutonium is a health hazard and c. smokeless gun powder is not

edit on 20-1-2013 by rockoperawriter because: (no reason given)

So again, my point with bringing up Occupy is that the rights afforded to them in the constitution to peacefully assemble that is a right that affects all americans, not just those who have a message that you don't agree with, were being regulated by emergency city meetings to push the protesters out of parks.

You sit here and claim that it's wrong for the government to regulate your 2nd amendment right, because it would be an inconvenience to you, but when the regulation of rights are happening that have no weight on you, you don't care.

Based on the above, you can't argue that you're about preserving the constitution, you just can't. Your entire argument is that you don't want there to be extra regulations on you. It has nothing to do with preserving your rights, because if that that was the case you would have been fighting for the rights of the Occupy protesters -- Even if you disagreed with their message!

Oh and apparently it isn't too hard to get a dirty bomb from the black market. The Vice group did a documentary on it already.

www.vice.com...

Why do you have a problem with additional barriers being placed on legal means to purchase firearms - again? It isn't because of your belief in the rights afforded by the constitution, or else you would have been up in arms for the occupy crowd. It isn't because you believe that people will still get arms on the black market, as I just showed that it is possible for someone to purchase a nuke. The black market does cost significantly more then legal channels to purchase weapons, so at least enacting more regulations on purchasing firearms through legal channels, it will cost the psychopaths more to buy their weapons. Heck, they might not be able to afford ammo after buying the gun!

Originally posted by sonnny1
reply to post by Honor93

 

So....when they subpena the insurance companies for gun owners, do the insurance companies comply?

exactly ... all i see is a big, wide, backdoor entrance to universal REGISTRATION.
did you read where in Mass, they have 'storage laws' ... the proposal would permit insurance agent inspection of 'storage' to write/maintain a policy

i'm not totally against having insurance, so long as it is my Choice.
mandated ?? my arse.

what happens when the economy really tanks and ppl cannot afford the insurance bill ?
confiscation

reply to post by Evil_Santa


I didn’t have a problem with the occupy movement but the right to protest doesn’t say the right to camp in city parks. The few protests I have been to. We actually protested. Occupy started out as a protest and turned into something altogether different. They couldn’t even articulate a message. Maybe if they had realized that leadership is a good thing and actually organized into something they could have accomplished something. Instead the only thing they showed the world was just how ineffectual their way of thinking was. They looked like a hobo camp and their experiment in mob rules was a failure.

Back on topic.. The guy was demonstrating in his own fashion and unlike the occupy experiment I think he accomplished what he was looking to do. He certainly got the attention he wanted and started a conversation which needed to be had. I think he succeeded in his goal.

Originally posted by Visitor2012
Lets just see how YOU feel, when someone walks into a store your visiting, carrying an Assault Rifle, side arm and extra clips!!

Lots of silly legal nonsense and hypocritical talk here. I bet every single one of you would be on SERIOUS alert, if not downright paralyzed with fear, if a person approached you like this in a shopping mall, armed to the teeth.

Well, that wasn't an assault rifle, but whatever. If I saw that, I'd probably talk to the guy, say "hi", ask him about his guns. That's usually what gun owners do.

Since there's some confusion.

Which of these is a Ferrarri?

Number 1:




or Number 2:



Which is the Assault Rifle?

Number 1:



Or number 2:



In case you don't know, the answer for both is number 2.